Bad Kaboom today

[jsalcedo]

I took my 45-70 handi rifle to the range today to try out some new hand-loads.

As I was setting up I noticed 3 hunters in identical camo and fu-manchu
mustaches sighting in their deer rifles.

All of the sudden I feel chunks of something hit my arm.and one of the guys starts screaming obscenites at the top of his lungs.

I look over to discover one of them had loaded a .308 winchester
into his 25-06 and fired it.

The floorplate of the rifle blew off one of the locking lugs failed and there
were pieces blown into the guys hand and face.

None of the guys were wearing eye protection but luckily none of them were seriously injured.

Then the guy starts hammering on the Remington sendero SF trying to open the bolt because he thinks he can just extract the shell put the
floorplate back on and keep on shooting.

I'm about to go get the range officer to boot these bozo's when all of the sudden one of the other guys drops a loaded rifle on the ground
and it clatters around on the concrete.

The person who kaboomed his rifle then starts ranting about how he is going to call remington because it is their fault. "a .308 should not go into a 25-06 anyway and if they made their damn rifles right this would have never happened.

I cut my range visit short because I was losing IQ points by sitting there
listening to this crap.

I got up and said "you should write a letter to Remington thanking them
for building a rifle that saved your life after a catastophic mess up"

They just stared blankly as I walked off.

 

[C.R.Sam]

Good rifle.
Defied the Darwinian attempt by it's owner.

Glad you didn't get hurt by the shrapnel.

Sam

 

[RSKING45]

Its alway someone elses fault anymore aint it.You are right, he should call remington to thank them for building a gun that saved him from his screw up.

 

[Kamicosmos]

Glad you didn't get hurt. Amazing some people's incomptentcy...were they shooting a 25-06 and just got the ammo mixed up?


Couple weeks ago, I helped someone unjam extra 7mm Mag rounds out of their rifle. They didn't know how many rounds would fit in the internal magazine, so they followed the Just keep cramming in there technique.

THey somehow managed to get 5 rounds into the mag! They admitted they didn't know much about guns, just got them out to shoot deer and shoot up in the air at New Year's.

 

[Keith]

He's right of course!

Rifle makers should have special models for stupid people equipped with audible messages that shout things at the correct moment - like "Double check that the ammo is correct, stupid!" when opening the bolt. Or, "Hey stupid, put the safety on!" when closing the bolt, etc.

Keith

 

[Soap]

The guy is right, the .308 and .25-06 don't even have the same diameter case or the same cartridge head size

 

[Jim K]

I don't like gun laws, but maybe there should be one to allow those dummies to use only the dummy rifles sold for high school color guards. Dummies for dummies sounds like a good idea.

Actually, I haven't tried it (not having a .25-'06), but looking at the chamber profiles of the two rounds, I don't think you can get a .308 into a .25-'06 chamber without a lot of force, like driving the bullet back into the case.

Of course, that is Remington's fault as well, as they should make chambers to take whatever the dummies want to put in them.

(One common ammo mistake is .308 in a .30-'06 chamber; sounds bad, but actually fires with no problem and will even function an M1 rifle.)

Jim

 

[Mike Irwin]

I've seen people do similar things, and the rifles survive...

The really spectacular one, though, was the .35 Remington into a .308 Remington 760 pump. That one didn't go too well for the gun or the shooter.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I got up and said "you should write a letter to Remington thanking them for building a rifle that saved your life after a catastophic mess up"

They might get it a few days from now; might not, too.

 

[Tamara]

My gunsmith has a story to tell about the time a kid came into the shop with the remains of an old FN/Browning High-Power Bolt Action (large-ring Mauser) in .270 that he'd accidentally chambered and fired a .30-30 cartridge in. He wanted to know if it could be fixed "before his dad got back into town."

It's a pretty funny story... ("You'd be surprised how far a .30 caliber bullet will swage itself into a .270 bore. Looked like a lead mushroom..." "Do you know how few floorplates Browning had in stock for those things, and what they wanted for them? Dang good thing it wasn't a high-grade engraved one, or he'd have been [slap] outta luck..." )

 

[Black Snowman]

I have two .308s and one .30-06 so I'm very careful about keeping the ammo seperate. Of course the .30-06 is a single shot breech loader which makes checking the ammo almost automatic. I wouldn't want to feed the higher pressure .308 into a .30-06 gun much less into something with a smaller bore

Always safety 1st, because guns are not safe. Just like planes, motorcycles, and cars. Screw up bad enough and they'll all kill you in a flash.

 

[uglygun]

All of the above are reasons I kinda feel uncomfortable about furthing my collection of firearms or atleast furthering my inventory of chamberings.


If I go with a 260Remington some day I want to avoid having any chances for confusion, atleast a 7.62Nato/308Winchester shouldn't chamber in the 260Rem. but I would also like to avoid having a 260Rem accidently getting mixed in with the ammo for my 308Win. chambered guns.


It's bad enough right now keeping ammo straight among my N-frames. You know, having a 4inch barreled model 29 as well as a 4inch barreled model 27 isn't so bad as ammo is pretty easy to differentiate between. But if I wind up getting a 4 inch barreled model 25 in 45LC, darned if it doesn't make me a little skidish thinking about a 44Mag accidently getting thrown into one of the 45LC chambers.


There's way less room for error in rifles. I'm kinda happy with my current rifle chamberings of 223Rem, 308Win, and 300WinMag.



Anyhow, going back to the very first post and the discription of the shooters. What are the odds that these were card carrying members of the NRA that hold the "sporting purposes" stereotypes regarding things like AK47 clones and the like? Not just people who are out there actively ruining it for the rest of us because of their views of what qualifies as "sporting" but also because they are plain and simply too stupid to operate a firearm.

 

[Chipperman]

I think I'll write a letter to Remington. In addition to the comments above, I have another suggestion. Mark the reciever with a cartridge silhouette, and the phrase "Pointy end goes in here"

On second thought, these guys prolly can't read...

 

[uglygun]

god forbid they had a muzzle loader, they probably would have harpooned themselves with the ramrod by priming first and then loading the charge.

 

[4v50 Gary]

3 Rings of steel saves the lives of 3 bozos. Glad you got out of there OK Jsalcedo. Also happy the bozos didn't kill themselves. We don't need that type of publicity. BTW, you may want to write Remington and congratulate them on their design that saved you and the bozos.

 

[capt_happypants]

It is possible to launch a .308 through a 25-06. Needless to say, the bullet's OAL is significantly increased once it departs out of the muzzle. The rifle was a Ruger M77 Mark I, and he's a very saavy shooter.

Even the best can make a mistake.

 

[BusMaster007]

Was this display of proficiency prefaced with a, "HEY! WATCH THIS!" ?

Leaving was a great idea!

 

[CB900F]

Hmmm, the Speer & Hornady manuals seem to think that the .308 & .25-06 share a case head diameter of .473. The neck, of course, is a different propostion.

In fact, that .4730 seems to be common to all the .30-06 family of cases, I wonder why that is?

900F

 

[Mike Irwin]

"In fact, that .4730 seems to be common to all the .30-06 family of cases, I wonder why that is?"

Because they're all children of the same parent cartridge -- the 8mm Mauser...

 

[oldfart]

I had two Mausers in 8mm. It seemed like a wasteful redundancy so I decided to rebarrel one of them. My gunsmith buddy tried to sell me a 30-06 barrel that he had on hand, but I chose to go with a .308 Parker-Hale barrel from Sarco. I had seen the picture in Keunhausen's book which showed a 30-06 Mauser after trying to fire an 8mm round in it.

While I suppose I might be able to chamber and fire a .308 round in the 8mm, it wouldn't really hurt anything. But there's no way I could even chamber an 8mm round in the .308, let alone fire it.

 

[Jack19]

It's not often someone gets to actually see the gene pool being cleaned....or in this case....washed a little.

 

[larryw]

Unfortunately, all too often its the innocent bystanders, like our friend jsalcedo who bear the brunt of such idiots. Simply look to the number of drunks on trial for vehicular manslaughter.

 

[Sven]

Note to self: shoot rifles on "members" days at the club.

Earlier this year I had a lead 'shaving' violently strike my face - this surprise was delivered by a mis-timed revolver one bay over... passed through a 1/2" slit in the baffles between the lanes, just missed my right eye.

After my shock and figuring out what happened, I realized: my 'normal' eyeglasses I had been wearing provide no protection from debris coming from the side! Doh!

 

[cracked butt]

I caught myself in the act of doing something stupid once. I made a series of mistakes that led up to the near miss.
1. I had a box of 30-06 loads and a box of 6.5x55 loads in identical blue boxes.
2. I was shooting the swede loads off a bench for a stint, I then wanted to shoot my '06 so I dug the blue box of '06 loads out of my bag.
3. I set out a shooting mat, was putting my sling on, and grabbed a blue box off the bench.
4. I loaded the rifle's magazine.
5. Just before I closed the bolt, I looked into the magazine- something didn't look right- the bullets looked too long and the cases too short..
6. My blood ran icy cold for awhile and I unloaded the rifle, got up, put everything way that I wasn't shooting, had a cigarette, recheacked my ammo and rifle, and then wen tback to shooting.

I knew better than to have 2 different types of ammo out at a time, but for some reason I got complacent and nearly made a big screw up. Fortunately, the 6.5 loads were pretty light, had a smaller diameter bullet, and possibly wouldn't have harmed me of the rifle, but its not a theory that I want to test.

 

[max popenker]

One of major reasons why Soviet 5.45x39 case has a smaller body and head diameter, than the 7.62x39 case, is to avoid chambering of the 7.62 into the 5.45mm rifles, which could cause a lot of damage. With current case sizes no one is able to puch the fatter 7.62 case into 5.45 chamber, regardless of their force and IQ

the revrsal is entirely possible, and the 5.45 in 7.62 chamner will fire and even cycle a clean gun. Actually, there's plenty of examples when someone fired the older 7.62mm AKM with 5.45mm ammo and then observed strange sound and no hits on the target. Only later examination will show deformed cases =)